


The Song With Your Name In It

by morganya



Category: Bandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-21
Updated: 2007-05-21
Packaged: 2017-10-20 06:58:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/209994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganya/pseuds/morganya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He might have left something else entirely in the room - his glasses, his wallet, a pair of socks. All he knows is that he's lost <i>something</i>."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Song With Your Name In It

He's left his notebook in Travis' hotel room, so they have to make the long walk back from the restaurant together so he can go get it. At least he thinks he left the notebook there. It might still be on the bus. He might have left something else entirely in the room - his glasses, his wallet, a pair of socks. All he knows is that he's lost _something_.

"Shit's falling off you all the time," Travis tells him. "You're like Pigpen or something."

"I shower, you know," William says indignantly. "I just lose track of things."

"Lose track," Travis says, tossing an arm around William's shoulders, taking the sting out of the words even as he's throwing William off balance (not difficult at this point). "Is that a nice way of saying you can't hold on to anything?"

"No way, man."

"Liar. So big of a liar."

"Gabe says that he still has your headphones, Travie. You know, if we're going to talk about holding onto things."

"I'm letting him keep 'em. Mine are better than any piece of crap he'd pick up. I'm a generous kind of motherfucker."

"Oh, yeah, right," William says, and then they're in front of the door and Travis is fumbling with his keys, saying, "What the hell, dude, why do all hotels use keycards and lasers and fucking retinal scans nowadays?"

It takes a minute, but Travis gets the door open. William spots his wallet lying on the foot of the bed - that's right, it was the wallet, not the notebook, the notebook's safe and sound back in his bunk, hopefully - and he picks it up and triumphantly waves it at Travis.

Travis doesn't immediately notice; he's already rummaging through the dresser drawers. When he looks up, baggie in hand, absent-mindedly kneading plastic-sheathed leaves with long thin fingers, he gives William a puzzled look and then laughs. "I thought you said you'd lost something else."

"I didn't _lose_ it," William says. He slips the wallet into his jacket. "Anyway, you can't remember what it originally was either, so why should I?"

"When'd you appoint me your keeper?"

"I dunno. I guess you're good at it."

"Bullshit," Travis drawls. He picks up his pipe and sprawls languidly in the chair by the window. "You expect me to be the responsible one?"

"You're older."

"Please. I can't even pay my electricity on time, man."

"I don't care," William says. "Hey, can I have some?"

"Pfft. You wish," Travis snorts, but he's packing the pot in and handing the pipe to William with what seems like one movement. "Catch the lighter, Bill."

William puts his hand up and Travis lobs his lighter over - dark blue, a tiny skull and crossbones on the side. William almost misses but not by much.

The first inhale scalds his mouth and throat, like sucking back hot desert wind, and tears come to his eyes and he almost chokes, but once he's exhaled he's okay. Travis sings quietly, almost sweetly, with a wavering tone, "'I was on your side, Bill, when you were losin' -'"

"That's the first time I've heard that one," William says, hoping the sarcasm's apparent.

"What'd Pete say that one time? When you were all bummed out about - something?" Travis takes the pipe back and puts his hand out for the lighter. "'William, William, it was really nothing, it was your heart.'"

"I don't think those are the right lyrics," William says. He watches Travis smoke, the pot glowing red in the bowl. "I don't remember him saying that, but he probably did."

"No doubt."

William accepts the pipe when Travis offers. Wedding Bell Blues is now inextricably lodged in his head. "Hey, Travie? Where are the songs with your name in them?"

"Travis doesn't rhyme with much."

"I mean, I never thought my name was that musical, you know?" he says reflectively. "But everyone's always singing these William songs or these Bill songs at me. Where are your songs? Like, you could -"

"Dude, I say my name like six thousand times on my record. It's right up there with how many times I said 'sexy.' And there's a reason for that, let me tell you."

"I'm just saying," William says. "I mean, it's like a representation of who you are, you know, except maybe it's not you, it's someone else using your name, but it, like, becomes fixed in people's minds, that you're this lyric, you're this song, and then the more songs there are about that representation -"

"You're about to burn your fingers," Travis says. "And about to break my lighter."

He lets go - too late, as it happens. "Ow," he says, and rubs his throbbing thumb.

"Too slow, Bill." Travis laughs. "You need to learn, don't smoke and talk."

"I was doing fine," William says sullenly. He sucks at the burnt skin of his thumb until it stops hurting.

Travis blows green smoke at the ceiling. "It's like everyone's saying their names now. You can't turn on the fuckin' radio without hearing someone shoot off their mouth about themselves. It's not, not a representation or anything, it's just bragging. It's not fuckin' music at all most of the time."

"I wasn't talking about that. I meant the way other people talk. Like, the way something gets stuck in people's heads, and then everyone else starts thinking that's you, so -"

"Why you gonna worry about what someone you don't know thinks?"

He thinks a minute. Travis has this weird ability to say things that made a lot of sense, sometimes. "I don't. Not really."

"You worry too much. Here."

He sparks the lighter, but he knows he's verging on too much when he inhales; his head's feeling fuzzy, his throat's raw. "Travie -"

"Why don't you write a song with my name?" Travis says. "I'll give you the first line: I know this kid Trav, he's the best one I'll ever have."

"Not enough syllables," William says.

"I thought you were all creative and artistic and shit. You can manage a syllable or five." Travis takes the pipe and gulps in smoke. He chokes. "Fuck."

"All right?"

"Need some water," Travis gasps. He clamps a hand over his mouth, skinny shoulders shaking alarmingly with each cough, and lurches out of the chair towards the bathroom. William hears the faucet turn on, the pipes clank. Travis keeps coughing, cataclysmically, and then he suddenly stops. All William can hear is running water.

William sits very still and tries to listen for any sign of Travis dying. He thinks there's going to be a thump or a yell or something, and his heart starts pounding crazily in his chest, and nothing happens and nothing happens and finally it seems like nothing bad has gone down that he knows of.

He grabs the pipe and sparks it again, thinking that it'll calm him down. All it does is make him remember the beer and tequila he'd had with his miniscule amount of dinner, and his head starts feeling too light for his body and his stomach feels weird. He falls back on the bed and curls his legs to his chest, breathing very quietly. The hotel bedspread is rough against his face, and he barely manages to push it aside, catching a corner with his chin and rolling his neck until his head finally hits the pillow.

He likes hotel pillows, the puffy, starchy feel of them. Somehow they always feel new, not crushed and molded into the shape of someone else's head, smelling of fresh cotton instead of shampoo. His hands feel heavy.

He hears the bathroom door shut and he tries to say, "I thought something bad had happened to you," but it comes out more like, "Narrgh." He hopes the message is clear.

"Yo." Travis pokes his back gently. "Bill. William Beckett. Move. That's not your bed."

"Is _too_ my bed," William says.

"Is not."

"Is."

There's the soft chink of something being placed on the bedside table, soft splash of water against glass. "Steal my pot. Steal my bed. Things I put up with. Like I'm running some kind of crack house." At the same time, he can feel Travis tugging on his feet, heels resting on what he thinks are Travis' thighs. He's untying his shoelaces, pulling his shoes and socks off. He keeps talking, more to the shoes than to William, something about lightweights and getting no respect. "Phew, what the fuck'd you walk through? Smells like you got dead hippos with yeast infections hanging out down here. Damn."

"Don't tickle."

"You know, you really shouldn't have said that." Travis laughs; he sounds fiendish.

"Nooo. Nooo. I'll barf."

"It'll give the maids something to do in the morning. Memento. They'd bottle it and sell it on Ebay. Official Academy Is... puke."

"Fuckin' gross," William says. He's in no position to defend himself, but he just hears a thump of something hitting the floor and then Travis is wrapping himself around William's ribs, beard stubble raspy against the back of his neck. "Ungh."

"I ain't sleeping on the floor, man," Travis mumbles. "I only got a few rules and I got to stick by them."

"'Kay," William says.

He still feels kind of out of it when he opens his eyes; his stomach feels okay but his head's full of sand, hot and shifting unexpectedly. The lights are still on in the hotel room. He slept on his shoulder wrong and it aches. He rolls onto his other side; his chin lands on Travis' chest.

He squints up. Travis' eyes are shut, lips parted. His hair is spread across the hotel pillows like some crazy nimbus. He murmurs something and his face squinches up, but doesn't wake. In a second, he relaxes.

Travis' shirt is warm against William's cheekbone, and he doesn't really want to move. He likes the way Travis smells - there's the mediciney alcohol sharpness, and heavy, sweetish pot smoke, and powdery hotel soap underneath it all. Carden would call it the life on the road smell. It's become instantly evocative to William, the way the smell of cut grass reminds him of summer. This one, though - the same one that he's smelled on himself more mornings than he can count - it reminds him of a whole lot of things, none of which he's ready to say to himself.

He presses his face closer against Travis' chest. He can hear him breathing, the faint asthmatic wheeze on the exhale. Travis smokes too much, William thinks, and doesn't seem to care; hasn't anyone been nagging him to go see a doctor?

He raises his fuzzy head up and rests it on one hand, looking at Travis' face. Fuck, he has long eyelashes. They look really soft, too. Silky, almost. Although you probably couldn't touch someone else's eyelashes without accidentally poking them in the eye.

He sort of wants to give it a shot, though.

Before he can carry through with the thought (probably for the best), Travis opens his eyes and blinks at him. His pupils are dilated, the irises red and achy-looking. "Yeah," he says thickly, like he's not sure who William is yet.

"Hi," William says, and kisses him.

Travis makes a soft surprised noise into his mouth, hands flapping on the bedspread. William's a little surprised himself, actually. He likes to kiss people - it's nicer than a handshake, it's a pretty easy way to say hello and goodbye - but it's a little different than lying on a bed with his tongue in Travis McCoy's mouth, sucking on his bottom lip and tasting tobacco.

It's a little different than Travis McCoy kissing him back.

Travis flicks his tongue across William's upper lip, groping across his stomach and getting a handful of his shirt. His beard scrapes against William's face, a casual abrasion; he'll look like he got a sunburn in the morning. "Bill -" Travis says, and it's both recognition and a weird kind of relief that William can't place right now.

"Mm?" William says around Travis' lip.

Travis smiles, his mouth stretching wide; the thin skin of his lip goes taut and William loses his hold. Travis slides a hand under his hair, palm warm against the back of his neck, yanking him close so that his hip fits into Travis' thigh.

Travis has his upper lip between his teeth, not biting but nibbling, barely any pressure at all. Still, his mouth feels bruised and swollen, blood rising too fast to the surface, and he wonders if Travis feels the same.

Travis is running out of breath; William can hear him beginning to gasp. Reluctantly, he pulls away. When he's back lying on his side, trying to adopt the same position he was in before he started this thing, he hears his own stuttering breath rush out of him. His heart is pounding.

Travis looks at him. "What the fuck."

"Yeah, man, I know."

They don't really say anything for a second after that. William suddenly finds himself beginning to laugh, giggle really, a release of tension, and then Travis starts snickering along with him.

"That's fucking crazy," Travis says. "You go around lookin' all innocent. Not so. Not so."

"I object to that," William says.

Travis stretches out one long color-splashed arm, fingers brushing William's hair. It looks accidental. "Well, I'm going back to bed now. Unless you feel like making out with me some more."

"No, man, I'm good."

"Okay." Travis shuts his eyes. His lashes fall like a curtain.

William supposes he falls back asleep as well; he doesn't really remember anything until his eyes open again. His mouth and throat feel like sandpaper, and it's an effort just to swallow; hasn't anyone ever told Travis about fucking hotel air conditioning and what it does, he needs a vaporizer or a humidifier or something. He swipes a hand across his eyes and then checks if Travis is awake. He's just kind of lying there, eyes closed, one hand casually draped over his crotch. His nail polish, pearly white, looks like it's starting to chip.

"You're staring at me," Travis says, and it makes William jump.

"I thought - you were like -"

"You were wrong."

"My throat's fucked up," William complains. "You need a humidifier or something in here, the air conditioning -"

"Bill. Quit talking. Come here."

"What?"

"I've been lying here for like an hour with a monster hard-on while you're off dreaming about goddamn puppies and rainbows. C'mere."

"You said you were sleeping, though."

Travis grabs his hip, pulls him to his side. William's hand lands somewhere near the top of his thigh. "You weren't supposed to _believe_ me, you dumbass. You were supposed to go, 'Oh, Travie, don't be like that, we've got serious pervert action to get done with.' But you actually thought I meant it. And then you actually went to sleep on me. I thought I was gonna explode." Travis moves William's hand from his thigh to his crotch, fingers interlacing. William can feel Travis' cock pressing into his palm.

"It took _every last bit_ of my self-control," Travis says in his ear. "Not to fucking molest you in your sleep. I don't have much self-control to begin with. You're lucky you woke up."

"I wish you'd said something."

"Bill -" Travis suddenly stops joking. "Just, please -"

William fumbles at Travis' zipper with stupid fingers. He tries to swallow, gulp the nervousness down, but his mouth feels even dryer than before. "Trav, I - I need water or something, I can't -"

"Water. Gotcha," Travis says. He reaches over to the bedside table, retrieves the glass he put there earlier and hands it over. William gulps it; the water tastes kind of old but he doesn't say anything.

Travis rolls his hips and arches his back, lifting himself off the mattress. William yanks his pants down around his knees. True to form, Travis isn't wearing underwear. He was exaggerating about the 'monster hard-on,' it's more like a mixture of hard and soft. William wraps his fingers around the base and feels the blood throbbing under the skin; Travis lets his breath out shakily. William licks his lips and curls his mouth around the hood.

He tastes salt, and warm skin, and the feel of Travis' cock nudging tentatively against his tongue is unfamiliar but still kind of nice. He runs his tongue around the curve, getting used to it.

"William -" Travis sounds weird, breathy and softer than he's heard before, and it takes a minute to realize that he's saying 'William,' not Bill or Becks or William Beckett or any of the things Travis calls him normally. William puts his cheek against Travis' thigh.

"That's not - you're gonna -" The effort of talking seems to desert him; he shrugs a leg over William's shoulder. It does actually seem to make things a little easier; he's not so hemmed in. William slides his mouth farther down; he does it too fast and gags when Travis' cock knocks against his palate, he can't breathe and he feels his eyes tearing. He loses control of his lips.

Travis hisses and goes rigid; his cock goes soft. There's a hand around William's hair, yanking his head back hard, and it stings. "Teeth! Motherfuckin' _teeth_!"

"I'm sorry!" William tries to say, but he was never good at talking with his mouth full so it comes out like, "Mmorree!" He pulls his mouth off, gasping for breath. Travis loosens his grip but doesn't let go.

"My bad," he says quietly, and strokes William's hair where he pulled it. "You're just learning, aren't you?"

"It's not -" He's blushing, he knows it, and it's stupid but he really doesn't want to look like an innocent right now. "I mean, it's not like I haven't had this done or anything -"

"Yeah, yeah. I'm not in a hurry. You were doing pretty good for a minute there. Want to try again?"

He smiles. "Kiss it better?"

"Yeah. All better." Travis splays his other leg to the side, long fingers sliding up and down his cock in preparation. "Just, you know, take it easy. I don't want to have to change my name to Bobbitt."

William watches Travis' cock swell, slowly, pressing up into the air. He wets his lips again and leans down, running his tongue up Travis' shaft and down the other side, up again and circling the hood. He can taste his own saliva on Travis' skin, ever so faintly bitter. Travis still has his hand in his hair, playing with it now, separating strands out and looping them around his fingers, massaging his scalp.

"You like me rubbing your head?"

"Mmm," William says. He says it again, liking the vibration on his lips, "Mmm."

Travis groans contentedly. William bobs his head, trying to pace himself. He still has to fight his gag reflex, and he doesn't really know how to time his swallowing. If his mouth was dry before, it sure as hell isn't now; it seems full of ocean water, trickling from the corners of his mouth down onto his chin.

Travis makes a soft "Oh oh oh oh," sound when he comes, and he tastes warm and thickly bitter on William's tongue. He swallows, pulls away, wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. Travis tilts his head, smiling sleepily with lowered lashes, and William breathes out. He drops back onto the pillows.

"So, what's on your mind now?" Travis says, and pulls his pants back up.

He doesn't answer, because the truth is that he wants everything, like usual, and he can't think of a way to say it.

"Hmm?"

"Travis," he says. "Travis -"

Travis gives him a mega-watt smile. "You don't think I'd really leave you hanging, right?" He rolls over onto his side and hooks a finger through the loops in William's jeans.

"No?"

"Liar. Now get - get these off." He's peeling off William's jeans now, the denim chafing against William's hipbones.

"Are you, like, on Viagra? I thought -"

"Touch yourself," Travis says softly.

It stings for a second - he's good enough to suck Travis off, but Travis won't even bother to touch him? He says, "I'm not gonna -"

"I want to watch your face. Please."

"I don't think this is a fair deal."

"Please. Please, William."

It might be the sound of his name in Travis' mouth that persuades him. Hoarsely, he says, "Start me off." At the same time he's trying to get one arm out of his shirt - he's a purist about this, he needs to be naked - and pulling his underwear off with the other. Travis says, "Here, c'mon, don't get crazy," and pulls off the shirt, tossing it into a corner. William throws his underwear after it.

"Open your mouth," Travis says.

Obediently, he opens his mouth; Travis slides two fingers partway in, tapping a beat against his tongue. William laughs and then sucks on the fingertips, callused and grooved on one side and then smooth and sort of chemical-tasting on the other (what nail polish is Travis using?). Travis watches him indulgently, resting his head on his other hand, hair all over the place and catching the hotel's artificial light.

"Easy," Travis says, and takes slick fingers out of his mouth. "You've got to be kind of wound up now. You're gonna bust a nut in two seconds."

"I've got stamina," William says.

"Keep saying that, maybe it'll come true."

Travis closes his hand around William's cock, warm wet fingers moving in tiny circles. William feels the familiar twitch of blood, the slow building pressure. He raises a hand and curls it around Travis', moving from circles to something slower and more familiar (he needs to work up to this). He lolls his head towards Travis, trying to look as coolly seductive as possible.

Travis presses into his side. His eyes are wide and unblinking, like William is something strange and beautiful. His hand is warm in William's, like it's some kind of extension of him, and William can't tell where his hand starts and Travis' ends. Travis is biting his lower lip; after a minute William realizes he's biting his as well.

He comes with a slow-motion sigh, stickiness landing warmly on his stomach and his fingers and probably Travis' as well. Travis doesn't stop looking at him. William drops his head back and smiles up at the ceiling.

After a minute, he hears Travis chuckle, swiping at his belly with the side of his hand. He raises his head, hoping Travis doesn't get the notion to pull some sort of _There's Something About Mary_ stunt on him.

Travis just finishes attempting to clean him off and then leans over, wiping his hand on the side of the bed. "Personal autograph."

"The maids'll fucking kill us," William says.

"We'll be long gone by the time they get here." Travis shakes his hand and then falls back. "Anyone ever tell you how your face gets all inhuman-looking when you come?"

"What?"

"It looked like you were having some kind of demon seizure, man. You were like -" Travis stretches his mouth wide, squeezes his eyes shut, lolls his head. He makes a low raspy sound in his throat.

"Fuck you."

"I kinda liked it." Travis says. "No, I kinda _loved_ it. It was awesome."

"Yeah, fine, whatever."

Travis takes his chin with two fingers, tilts his head up. "I kinda like this one, too."

He grins, and Travis grins back, and then William rolls over and wraps himself around Travis' side, breathing in the life on the road smell.

They get woken up by the hotel phone at eight in the morning. William's mouth tastes like a sewer and his throat's dryer than ever, and he tries to burrow into the bedspread while Travis growls unpleasantly into the phone receiver. It's only when Travis says, "What the fuck you mean, nine a.m. bus call? It's the shitty crack of dawn!" that he remembers that _he_ has a bus call, and he doesn't remember when it is.

"Fuck!" He launches himself off the bed, tripping over Travis' shoes, and starts rooting through the chaos for his clothes. Travis slams the phone down and coughs over the side of the bed.

William eventually locates his underwear and shirt. One of his shoes is under the bed. Fuck knows where his socks are.

"Dude, you _could_ help," he snaps at Travis.

"I don't fuckin' know where anything is," Travis rasps. He spits into the wastebasket.

William catches a look at himself in the mirror above the dresser just after he manages to find his pants. His hair is snarled up in the back and he has flyaways everywhere. His eyes are red and puffy, dark circles already starting to form. There are red blotches along his jawline and on his forehead, acne like a fourteen-year-old, oily and just waiting to erupt. The life on the road smell has turned from evocative to just plain foul, and if he doesn't get a shower this morning he's going to stink of beer and pot and old sweat and come for the rest of the day. And his head hurts.

Fucking great.

He pulls his shoes on, deciding to abandon the socks. Travis staggers up, scratching the back of his head.

"I gotta get back to the room, Travie," William says. "So the bus won't leave without me."

Travis picks sleep out of his eyes and doesn't answer. William spots his jacket and jerks himself into it, struggling to get his hotel room key out of the pocket. He's already opened the door and stepped outside into the miserable, stinking sunshine when Travis says, "Bill."

"What?"

Travis stands before him, heavy-lidded and half-asleep, shadows under his own eyes. He holds up William's wallet. "Want this?"

"Oh," William says. "I didn't notice - yeah, I guess. Thanks."

He takes the wallet and puts it in his jacket. Travis says, "One more thing."

"Yeah?"

Travis tilts his head up and kisses him.

And then William doesn't stop smiling for the rest of the day.


End file.
